Rocky Mountain Expert Computer Services

09/15/2016

Just a friendly reminder!

I know it can be difficult to see messages like the above and not immediately call. However, while we here at RMECS are also tech support you call, don't EVER call the numbers you get in a popup. They will claim anything under the sun to get your credit ca

04/12/2016

A rather interesting read

As an experiment we dropped nearly 300 USB sticks on the UIUC campus to assess if USB drop attacks work and see if concerns about USB security were justified. We found out that at least 48% of the drive were plugged. This blog post summarizes how we ran the study, highlights the key findings, looks…

03/21/2016

Things to live by

IT isn’t the only department stretched thin. In the past 20 years the economy has grown nearly 60 percent. Corporate profits have increased 20 percent. And wages have stagnated for most Americans. The workday goes from 9 to 7 and the U.S. is among a small club of nations that doesn’t require time of…

03/11/2015

In this day and age, everyone is a target to be hacked. While you might not think of yourself as important, should you work for a company, you might be the springboard they need to break into that. At the very least, they can either use or sell your identity and open a few lines …

07/12/2014

I know it seems tedious, but if the recent heartbleed bug taught us anything it is that if you use the same password everywhere, all it takes is one of the sites to get compromised and they are all compromised.

I do have a solution though, but how far you take it is up to you.

1) …

06/26/2014

If you can't remember your passwords, this comes highly recommended. A very secure way to keep passwords

LastPass is an online password manager and form filler that makes web browsing easier and more secure.

06/20/2014

Our new site is live http://rmecs.com/

Thanks to Folsom Creative and their hard work!

06/13/2014

New site is due to launch next week!

06/11/2014

Network security at home is often overlooked simply due to a lack of knowledge. While we must admit that corporate security is far more valuable to most people trying to get in, home security should be more important to you. Both are important, but one affects you alone and the other might affect your company.



In short, you should secure your wireless network. Sitting at my home, I can identify several networks around me that are simply open. Most wireless routers prompt for a password to connect as part of setup, but some just ignore it and leave the network open. Not only does this allow ANYONE to connect to the network, but the traffic isn't encrypted. Someone with a specialized piece of software can steal packets of data right out of the air. Included in these packets could be your credit card number, or other sensitive information, and all they have to do is sit in front (or close to) of your house with a laptop.



For a while Jake tried this as a selling point. Get some sensitive data from someone and present it to them and offer to secure the network. Unfortunately, the police told him he had to stop but this is the same as leaving a bag of money sitting on your front door step and then being surprised when it is empty. Most people will not tell you they "broke in". They will simply take what they want and use it.



So what should you do? First, make sure that there is at least a password on the network. Most routers can be accessed at one of these pages: (this only works when you are connected to home wifi)

http://192.168.0.1
http://192.168.1.1
http://10.1.1.1

There may be others too, but these are the main ones. If you can't connect, consult the manual that came with your router

It may ask for a password, if you didn't set one up then it is usually:

admin/password
(blank)/admin
(blank)/password
admin/admin
admin/(blank)

If your login matches any of these, be sure to change this password too. This password is separate from the wifi password and should be different.

Once you are in, look for wireless security. It can be in many many places, but it should be obvious.

Put a password on the device's wireless access.



Advanced users only!

An additional piece of security you can implement is MAC address filtering. Basically, you can create a whitelist of devices that can access the network. While not foolproof, this means potential attackers need to spoof this additional piece to connect, not to mention that they need the password too.

You could also hide the SSID and then they need to know that too.



If you need assistance with this, feel free to call us. If possible we'd be happy to help with this over the phone or remotely (though it is not preferable to deal with networking issues remotely due to the fact that any change will disconnect us). We are here to help in any way we can. Don't leave your network unsecure for anyone to access!